Dec. 14 was a date college basketball die-hards circled on their calendars before the season started. While some of the luster was taken away given several teams' poor starts to the campaign, it was still as loaded a nonconference Saturday as we've had in some time, with 18 ranked teams in action.
And it lived up to expectations.
There were buzzer-beaters -- we're looking at you, Dylan Harper and Jordan Gainey. There were rivalry games, with Kentucky, Cincinnati, Oklahoma and Rutgers among those beating their biggest in-state foe. And there were massive top-25 upsets, with Dayton over Marquette being the biggest one.